Kidnapped
by Asteroth6
Summary: Laura finds herself mysteriously taken captive while escaping Silas University. Post S1.
1. Chapter 1

**Feeling a bit better now, so here is the start of another multi-chapter. Just a quick intro chapter.**

* * *

It was all going according to plan.

Well, as much as anything ever went according to plan in Laura Hollis life.

They—Laura, Perry, LaF, and Carmilla—packed up as quick as humanly possible and ran as fast from Silas University as their feet could take them.

* * *

"Come on, we can make it to the nearest real town by sunup if we hurry!" Laura urged her friends.

"I really don't think this is necessary." LaF grumbled. "I'd really rather see what that fish god is, up close, and without my mind being drained."

"I hate to admit it but I think Su- Lafontaine." Perry was still stumbling over actually accommodating her friend's choice of name. "Is right. Aren't we being a little rash? With that… unfortunate underground occurrence, that was probably mostly cave gas exaggerating what we really saw, behind us I'm certain the university will be back to normal soon."

Laura was too busy weaving between the thick crags of the mountainside to even roll her eyes at that.

"Normal was already kidnapping girls and libraries swallowing students whole. None of us are safe there. Don't worry about it. Betty already agreed to help us transfer schools, she has some friends or something that helped her sudden move to Princeton."

Laura's sheer tiny-ness was an advantage in one small way at least: She could navigate the mountains outside of Silas in ways none of her other friends could. Unfortunately, it just left her needing to wait for the other girls to catch up. She had just pushed between a crag and slid, deliberately, down a small slope before realizing none of the other three could fit.

"Darn it. Okay, you three circle around. There's a path on the left, I'll wait for you."

"Can do Hollis." LaF shouted back. They and Perry disappeared behind the rocks, following her directions.

" _Where did Carm go?"_ Laura wondered to herself.

She began to jog towards where she could meet her other two friends when they got down. However the diminutive girl never made it there.

With a sudden sharp sensation of pain in the back of her head, Laura Hollis fell unconscious.

* * *

" _Oh my bloody Tardis…"_

Upon reaching consciousness the first thing Laura was greeted with was an agonizing pain headache.

" _Where the hell am I?"_


	2. Chapter 2

**Here we go. Not much action yet, but we're getting there.**

* * *

Laura tried to figure out her surroundings through the stinging pain in her head.

After a moment she found the dimness was not only from her vision after waking up, wherever she was being held in apparently had very little light. That made the challenge of discovering what the heck was going on all the harder.

" _Okay Hollis, stay calm. Lois Lane wakes up in dungeons all the time. You got this."_

First she tried tentatively moving, careful to remain quiet in case her captor—if there even **was** a captor—should still have been present.

" _Damn!"_

She felt her arms and feet were tied, a fact that had gone unnoticed through the stress, searing head pain, and disorientation. Further wriggling though revealed the knots to be loose, almost like her captor didn't actually care if she escaped them or not.

Still careful to remain discreet, she work her hands free one at a time. Then, with agonizing care to move as quietly as possible, she reached down and untied her feet.

" _Oh, come on!"_

The act of untying herself revealed another unpleasant fact. Beneath the rope binding her feet was a small shackle chained to the floor.

" _Okay, is there anything_ _ **else**_ _I'm missing on my body right now?"_

Sincerely concerned, and deeply annoyed, about this, Laura quickly patted herself down from head to toe looking for any remaining surprises. She breathed a soft sigh of relief upon finding nothing.

" _Now it's time to figure this out."_

With renewed conviction, she set to the task of examining the room. Now able to move enough to get a better view in addition to her eyes having adjusted somewhat to the dark, she was able to at least glean some information about her surroundings.

It was clearly a room, not a cave of some kind. The rough wooden floor and ramshackle walls pointed to a cabin or shed of some kind. Unsurprisingly, it looked like very few objects had been left with her. What looked to possibly be a table or desk was sitting on the far side of the room, but no other features broke up the barren desolation of the room. Most importantly by the small shafts of light peeking in from under the single door, the building appeared to only be one small room and which held no other occupants.

"Right then, let's see how badly they want to keep me here."

Laura decided to check if the shackle holding her in place was as half-hearted as the ropes were. She gripped the shackle around her ankle firmly, and flung her whole weight backwards.

The chain did not even budge a centimeter.

"Unless I can chip away the wood floor somehow, it seems I'm here for the long haul."

Since she was apparently momentarily safe, Laura finally stood up and walked around the room to the limit of her chain. Partially in order to look for a tool to help her escape, and partially to help her think about her situation.

" _I seem to be in a cabin. Probably out in the mountains around Silas. I can tell because the temperature feels almost exactly the same as before I was knocked out, and the air smells faintly of local pine. So I also probably was not out long nor moved far. Lafontaine, Perry, and Carmilla were either not captured, or are being held separately. Considering the effort to grab me when I was separated and knock me unconscious before I could call for help; odds are overwhelmingly that I was grabbed alone. That means my friends are looking for me. Should I scream for help? No. Even if I wasn't moved far, my captor is still going to be closer than Carm and the others."_

Laura took a great deal of time pacing in circles, examining the room in a distracted way while weighing all of her precious few options. There were a few loose nails in the wall: That meant she could possibly chip away the floor enough to pull her shackle free. She could also cry for help, and then stab her captor if, or when, they try to stop her.

However, that latter option seemed too dangerous. Silas was rife with supernatural threats. And fit as she was, Laura Hollis could barely be considered large enough to subdue a belligerent twelve year old, let alone the undead.

That left even fewer options.

" _If this chain is secured so well, I'm never going to chip it loose before nightfall. And if whoever is holding me here catches me chipping it loose, that may provoke them. I'm better off arming myself and waiting to see who shows up. Then, once I've gotten a feel for what kind of psycho I'm dealing with I can plan more."_

Laura worked one of the rusty nails out from the wall, slipped it into her back pocket, and waited.


	3. Chapter 3

**At least a little bit of action starts here. Don't worry, real character interactions will start soon.**

 **On another note, I'm surprised how quickly the Carmilla fandom emptied out after S3 wrapped up. I'm not talking about my lack of reviews (that's because nothings really happened yet I assume), but just in general how quickly things dried up. I suppose a lot of people didn't even make it to S3.**

* * *

Laura waited.

But her captor never came.

She sat there upon the floor, watching as the wan light creeping under the door slowly faded to blackness. Hours passed, though she had no way to tell how many. It was honestly shocking to realize that whatever had kidnapped her had no interest in facing her. Not to interrogate her, not to gloat, not even just to check in.

" _Maybe tomorrow. Wait a minute! Stay focused. This means I can probably escape. Now I know that I can probably chisel free uninterrupted."_

The tiny girl tried to keep herself on track. She even tried to set to work on the project of chipping free. But after so many boring hours of waiting, and of course her run through the mountains earlier that day, she was simply unaware just how tired her body was.

Laura Hollis fell asleep.

* * *

She woke up the next morning, if the return of her small shaft of light was any indication.

After a brief ritual of yawning, stretching, and dearly wishing for a toothbrush and a shower she was about to set to work on her escape plan when she noticed something new in the cabin.

Her laptop computer.

There it was, sitting right in the middle of the floor. Comfortably within reach of her shackle.

" _Why? Why on earth would my kidnapper give me my laptop? Not just leave it, but actually deliver it to me? Are they going to come here to explain? Do they expect me to do something with it?"_

Laura pondered many questions. Ultimately, she concluded that the only way to figure this out was by checking out the computer itself.

She sat down and cautiously opened the laptop.

" _No sort of trap on the machine itself. That's a good sign I suppose."_

She booted up the computer. Obviously, the first thing she noticed was that the Internet (and Silas aethernet) was not working.

" _Big surprise out here deep in the mountains."_

Of course that made the laptop useless for contacting help. Ultimately, the only thing she could use it for now would be to pass the time. She began to check the files for any clue why her kidnapper brought it to her in the first place.

" _Nothing. There's nothing here. What on earth is going on?"_

Eventually though, Laura did notice something slightly different. Her shortcuts (which she never used anyway) had all been removed except one: Her webcam program.

" _Why would they want me to use that? I can't stream or upload it. Oh well, whatever."_

Laura set up her computer to catch the most of what little light existed in the room. After a few adjustments and a half-hearted attempt to straighten her hair to a presentable level of neatness she started the computer's camera recording.

"Hello students of Silas, who will in all likelihood never see this. I seem to have been kidnapped. I have no clues as to the nature of my kidnapper other than the fact that they have given me this computer. So, since I have absolutely nothing better to do, I might as well record this."

She leaned back against the wall and loudly sighed.

"Which is a really stupid waste of time. I should probably try escaping instead."

Laura shut off the camera before rifling around pockets to find the rusty nail she had saved the day before. With a resigned groan she began the slow work of chipping away the worn, dusty wooden floor.

She knew the process would take hours. A single bent lump of marginally pointed rust was only barely better than useless for any sort of job let alone chiseling. The only reason it was even remotely functional was the equally sorry state the floor was in. So Laura chipped, scraped, dug, and chiseled until her fingertips bled from gripping the rough rusted metal so harshly. She knew she might regret it later, but only freedom mattered for now.

Dying rays of orange sunlight creeping under the door gently heralded the news that she had worked the entire day away. Laura decided to take a brief break, her body had broken a sweat despite the cool mountain air.

Sometime, an indeterminate length into the break (telling time in anything but the most general sense was impossible, obviously), the door swung open. Laura almost did not even react she was so stunned, before scrambling to her feet.

She was ready, eager even, to finally meet her captor; holding scant hope that this could be any sort of rescue instead. She stood at the ready, slipping the nail in her pocket in case things got ugly.

Instead of a person however, a bag sailed into the room through the open door and landed in the middle of the floor. Laura gasped and recoiled instinctively as the projectile thudded to the ground.

She quickly regained her composure and waited though, rather expecting the bag's launcher—or somebody at least—to follow. Her hopes of confrontation with her kidnapper were dashed however when the door closed, seemingly on its own even, thus denying her a look at so much as her captor's hand.

"Wait!" She broke down, sick of the helplessness of not even knowing why she was taken. The isolation even from her own captor.

"Please! Just come back. Gloat, pontificate on your greatness! Taunt me for being kidnapped! Just please _do something_!"

No response came. Not even the sound of departing footsteps.

Laura slumped down against the wall in defeat.

* * *

"Hey, imaginary viewers."

Laura smiled wanly to the camera, holding a cookie in her hand. The light of day once again streaming into the room through the cracks.

"So, still working on that escape, but apparently the kidnapper knows my favorite foods. I just got delivered a mystery bag yesterday. It contained, get this: Chocolate chip cookies, soy milk—the real stuff, not blood—a box of cocoa powder packets, and a package of dried apple slices."

She took a bite out of the cookie.

"This proves my captor knew about me at Silas." She declared enthusiastically.

"Which means absolutely nothing." She sighed in defeat. "I mean, I only got kidnapped escaping Silas after killing its Dean **and** the ancient horror living underneath it. That could totally be a coincidence, right?"

One sarcastic eye roll later. "Obviously they knew about me. But since I barely scratched the surface of ancient supernatural threats here, it could be anything. I never even had to have met it for something to be coming after me after that debacle. And considering Carm survived the bottom of the hole…"

A smile burst onto her face as she snapped her fingers in success.

"Will! He was creepy, hardly ever talked, and could easily have survived if Carm did. If anything crawled out of there looking for revenge I bet it was him. He hated Carm already and tried getting to her through me once, now he can try again without the threat of the Dean holding him back."

Laura looked invigorated with a lead to follow. In all truth, she was already aware that her leaps of logic were resting on a vague hunch with no evidence at all, but it felt right. Besides, she needed something to work with.

"If it is Will, then he won't do anything to me until he brings Carm here to see it. He never wanted any kind of revenge on me. Hell, he never even noticed me. All he wanted was to work out his mommy issues by getting Carmilla out of the way so he could be favorite. That means I've got at least some hope of rescue."

Laura stopped to think for a moment. Clearly something had invaded her train of thought.

"See me." She mumbled, mulling the phrase over like a mystery unto itself. "Unless he could make sure she sees me without ever coming at all. Like a recording of his revenge. An actual video diary of the love of her post-life being held captive, going mad, and eventually-!"

She cut off visibly paled.

"Well, either way it shouldn't matter. I can just use this." The tiny gay held up he rusty nail. "To escape. Which I shall resume doing right now."

Leaning forward with a dramatic flourish, she turned the camera off.

* * *

A visibly haggard Laura stared into the camera once more. A stifling darkness betrayed the fact that it was night once more.

"I, uh-" She started with an almost incoherent mumble before her voice almost immediately faded out.

Tears began to stream down her face. She wiped them off with her sleeve revealing scratched, bloody hands.

"The nail plan won't work." She tried again.

She reached out, grabbed the computer, and angled the camera at her shackle.

"A cement foundation. Somehow this awful little shack was built on a cement block."

True to her words, the shackle was firmly embedded into a gray slab. Scratch marks surrounded the spot where metal and stone met and the now warped and fully broken nail could be seen on frame, betraying the likely source of her damaged hands.

"Did Silas actually have a shack built just for holding prisoners? I could believe it at this point."

Laura looked slightly calmer for talking to the camera when she finally angled the computer back at her face.

"It's funny, nobody is actually watching this to help me, but I'm so used to doing these I actually almost feel like somebody could stumble on this and rescue me."

She gently chuckled. "Not happening this time. No Danny bursting in to save me here. No Carm either. I'm chained to a floor, and I need to escape what is probably an actual vampire entirely on my own."

With a sigh, she reached forward to turn the camera off.

"Well, I guess I'll sleep on that. Goodnight nonexistent-viewers."


	4. Chapter 4

**Here we go at last!**

 **Plot! Character! More than just a person sitting in a room alone! It took so long to get this out because I knew (in no small part because of the very little response) that no one was going to keep reading small chapters with little real action (which should not have come as a surprise).**

* * *

Laura woke up the next day honestly uncertain of what to even attempt. Their was, quite simply, no obvious route to even work towards an escape.

The shackle most certainly was not coming off of her foot, she had tried that already. The concrete block was obviously not coming out of the ground. And hours of pained stabbing and scratching had proven well enough that the chain was not leaving the block.

That left confronting her kidnapper.

" _But what could I even accomplish? Under the overwhelming chance they are a vampire, I could never even put up a fight. Not free, and sure as heck not shackled."_

Laura knew she would need to come up with a daring new plan if she was going to get out of here alive. Every conventional method of escape had already been exhausted. The only options left were to either draw attention to attract help, or confront her kidnapper. Considering the completely isolated nature of her mountain prison, the former option sounded far more viable.

However, an almost insurmountable problem still faced her in the form of how to survive an encounter with her captor. For that, Laura turned her attention to the table she had largely ignored since arriving.

It was old, wooden, and almost pathetically rickety; just like everything else about the shed. The most rational explanation for her captor not removing it was to leave her computer on it. Maybe in case of rain (though it seemed doubtful it could survive anyway considering the ceiling might as well have been a net), or maybe just to give her a better angle for the camera. In either case she had made no use of the table, Laura was hardly motivated and it stood at the limit of her chain.

Now however, _**now**_ it was very much an object of interest.

" _If I could detach a leg then maybe… I could possibly craft a stake and embed it in the wall."_

A stake alone would be useless in fighting a vampire. She was no Danny, nor did she have a mob backing her like Perry. Not to mention the whole 'shackled to the floor' thing. However, if she could take the vampire completely by surprise, then maybe she could do something at least.

Laura set to work on her plan.

She started by snapping a leg off from the table, choosing the back right do to it being the least visible from the door and allowing the table to remain supported against the wall. This proved extremely easy given the condition it was in. Next, she broke the table leg in two.

" _Now for the hard apart."_

The ramshackle nature of her prison that she had noticed earlier would finally play to her advantage. A portion of the walls were rusted sheets of aluminum siding, common to outdoor sheds, the rest were rotted squares of plywood—a few covered by tarps that she could glimpse through the sundry selection of rot holes. Laura scoured those aluminum sheets for sharp edges, one sturdy enough to hold.

" _Score!"_

She excitedly held the siding in place with one hand, and began to whittle away the broken wood into a stake with the other. The process was terribly slow, this was not a blade of any sort. The only saving grace being that natural wear tends to sharpen otherwise flat metal edges, as countless unfortunately souls in contact with heavily worn metal can testify.

Unfortunately, wear also comes with a price. Laura groaned as the metal snapped in her hand barely after starting. Still, she had anticipated this possible outcome. With a resigned sigh she began searching for the next edge capable of use as an improvised blade.

The process took hours; fortunately time was the only asset Laura had no shortage of. She worked tirelessly, scrapping wood until her blade broke, finding a new edge, and repeating. Her fingers bled, she pushed out of her mind the fear of what infections she might contract in this place. Time and time again the process repeated itself until finally, how much later she did not know, Laura held a solid, sharp stake in her hands.

" _Finally! I'm making some progress."_

The next stage of her plan was simpler, in hard labor at least. She worked to firmly embed her newly crafted stake in the wall at such a location as someone entering the building would be unlikely to see it for the door, but said individual could still be forced onto it. Thankfully, the easily shifted panels in the wall and readily available loose nails made the process more frustrating than difficult.

With that completed, Laura began the final stage of her plan:

Waiting.

Again.

Patiently, the tiny prisoner waited.

She knew that her captor would come back. If they delivered food once, they would do it again.

It was painful. It was exhausting. It was perseverance.

* * *

In time, the sound of the door being opened came. Laura had been careful to attune herself to the slightest sound from the outside. She knew there would be very little time to attract her captor's attention, and that she would need to make the most of it.

"Hey you! Couldn't handle having your mom killed? Or maybe you just got scared."

She knew it was a gamble to rely on it being Will, but she knew of no other choice. Just shouting random things would never attract her captor if they were this determined to avoid confronting her. She needed to somehow rile them up, goad them into making a move. Taking a gamble on being right seemed the best way.

"I always knew you were some kind of weirdo, playing the quiet, self-absorbed prick in the background all the time. Why don't you just do something right in your life and face me?!"

Laura knew she didn't have the sharpest tongue for mockery. Being the small town gay, with an overprotective slightly crazy dad to boot, put her on the receiving end of a fair amount of it, but she usually found more creative ways to get back on the rare occasion she felt the need to.

" _Hopefully this will be enough to get his attention."_

A moments silence passed. For the briefest time Laura thought they had gone away already, but then light footsteps could be heard entering the cabin. She scrambled to her feet in preparation.

No preparation, however, could steel her to what she saw.

"When did you figure it out?" A familiar husky voice penetrated the room.

"Carm?"

"Oh thank goodness Carm, you're here!"

The suddenly energized Laura flung herself onto the surprised vampire with wild abandon. In her exuberance at the sight of her vampire girlfriend crossing the threshold, Laura completely ignored the words that came out of her mouth.

"Some lunatic kidnapped me when we were trying to escape. I think it may be Will. I can't believe you're finally here." The words poured out in a constant stream.

Carmilla seemed taken aback by the energetic display of affection.

"It's alright now." She mumbled, slowly hugging the tiny girl back. She seemed hesitant and unsure how to react, which wasn't terribly surprising given the vampire's track record on emotions and comforting. "Just lie down, take a deep breathe, and calm for a little while."

She gently lowered both of them to the ground. Laura tried to wriggle loose.

"I don't think we should-"

But her protests died as she felt Carmilla's strong arms not loosen their grip. Despite the niggling worry in the back of her mind, she melted into her vampire girlfriend's arms and let herself relax a moment.

The sensation of lying down wrapped in the cold yet comforting body of her undead lover again at last was deeply soothing, and Laura let herself surrender to those feelings. To her surprise she felt Carm begin gently kissing the back of her neck.

"Ohh…" She softly moaned. "Really," She haltingly started. "Now's not the time. They could come back any moment. Could you break the shackle?" She gestured to her ankle.

"I-" Carmilla seemed hesitant, upset even. "I can't do that."

A brutal chill stabbed through Laura's form like an ice pick. She all too suddenly recalled the vampire's unusual words upon entering the shed.

Abruptly, she pulled herself away from the undead woman; almost as if she had been burned.

"What did you mean by 'figure it out'?" She demanded.

"Laura." The raven haired woman seemed deeply upset, almost on the verge of a breakdown. "Calm down please. You seemed to know-"

"No!" The tiny girl screamed with sudden venom. "No, no, no! I didn't know, but you thought I did. I'm not stupid Carm. I was just too shocked to think about it."

"Please Laura. Let me explain this." Carmilla pleaded.

"Fine! Explain this: Were you the one who kidnapped me?" Laura asked forcefully.

"The Dean isn't really dead." The undead woman blurted out as quickly as possible, to prevent Laura from interrupting. "And she completely controls the villages around the University. I know; I've tried to bring girls out this way before. If you went out, they would kill you. If you returned, she would kill you. This was the only way I could save you."

Laura looked positively furious.

"You don't get to 'save me'!" She screamed. "I make my own choices! You could have just told me what I was walking into. We could have talked about it. But no, just like last time you decided to 'save me from myself' the human pet doesn't get a say in it. No, the only people who get to make choices for me are apparently everyone else. I'm sick of it!"

After exhausting herself on her rant Laura settled into glaring at the older woman. Who, entirely unlike her normal outward demeanor, seemed honestly pained.

"If I had told you." She slowly began. "You would have either made some brave plan to plow on into the face of danger anyway, or worse you would have insisted on turning back to save everyone; and you would have died. I have regrets Laura." She laughed a cold, bitter laugh. "Hell, I already have more regrets than you ever will. One of them is that you will probably hate me."

She moved closer to the small girl. So uncomfortably close that what Laura might have once found comforting instead left her cringing away in fear as the vampire sensuously sniffed her from her shoulder to the top of her head.

"But in you I found a love—a meaning in life—that I hadn't felt since Ell. When I weighed those regrets, I realized that between seeing another one that I love murder, as much my fault as if I myself had killed them, or seeing them grow to hate me; I know that I couldn't keep my sanity through the grief of another loss. The choice was clear I'm afraid."

The small girl pushed her away roughly and turned her head in a vain attempt to hide the tears she was holding back.

"Get out! If you aren't going to release me just get out!"

The dark vampire slowly rose to her feet and moved towards the door.

"I'm sorry." She quietly mumbled. With a gentle nod of her head, she left.

Laura held strong for a few more moments to ensure the vampire was gone.

Then she wept.

* * *

 **At this point I need to make two things clear:**

 **This is not just a random OOC story. This was inspired almost entirely by "alt-Carmilla". The extremely disturbed, immensely clingy Carm Laura found in the alternate timeline. Essentiall, this story just ponders what might have been if our beloved useless lesbian vampire manifested those traits a little earlier; at the mere thought of losing Laura rather than in response.**

 **Secondly, no rape of any kind will be in this story. Not even a little. No effing way. The thought of Carmilla doing that to Laura is deeply disturbing.**


	5. Chapter 5

Eventually, Laura had cried herself to sleep.

She stayed in a near comatose state pretty much the entire next day. It was impossible to tell when exactly she finally started moving again, but it was surely a very long time.

When she did move, it was naturally partially driven by hunger pangs. Scrounging around the latest bag, she pulled out some food and apathetically forced it down. In doing so however, she also noticed something else: a USB portable battery. Obviously intended for her to use to keep her computer charged.

Not that it had even died yet, as she had only powered it up in order to record her videos, each only a few minutes long. However it served as a reminder that she had an outlet to both create some record of this and help make sense of it.

With an exhausted release of breath, she retrieved her laptop and booted it up.

"Hey again possibly-some-future-day viewers. It seems I really know how to pick 'em." She tried an enthusiastic punching motion, but halfway through her eyes were already leaking fresh tears. "As you probably just guessed, I've been kidnapped by my own girlfriend who is currently holding me captive indefinitely."

She chuckled lightly. "So yes: I left the slightly too overbearing and controlling Danny for the—apparently—psychotically controlling Carmilla. In my defense she had a lot of plusses at the time!"

The short girl could be seen staring off camera wistfully for a moment before remembering herself and snapping back to the present.

"Anyway, now I guess I have to figure out how to escape from my own vampire girlfriend. Why does this whole scenario feel like a sleazy erotic novel?"

She then shut off the camera and closed the computer.

" _Well one step down: I know who the kidnapper is. Sure, it had to be the person I thought might be the love of my life. Still; making progress Hollis."_

The captured girl sat back and started planning from square one again.

* * *

Her planning failed to make much progress (or any at all really) by the time she heard the door opening some hours, and a quick nap, later.

"Hey. Since you know everything anyway, I thought I might as well drop off some of your books and junk from back in the dorm room. "

Carmilla emerged into the room again. This time gently lowering a sack to the ground rather than throwing it in.

Laura just glared daggers at her. Her scowl so deep it could possibly have frightened even Perry.

"It's ok, I know you probably aren't ready to talk yet. I just want you to know that even if you don't understand it, I am trying to take care of you. The world is a stupid, cruel, and bitter place. It would love nothing more than to take a wondrous fruit like you and destroy it, just to take pride in knowing that they ruined something truly beautiful."

The darkly gorgeous woman sighed wistfully, looking out the door across the shadowy mountain.

"My mother is essentially an embodiment of all that spite. I can't even fathom in the most horrible and pained places deep within my nightmares what she would do to you. The way she made certain to turn Ell against me rather than **just** killing her."

She shook her head in sadness and disgust.

"I can't let that happen. I can't let her win. And I _**need**_ you Laura. You are something truly special, beautiful. An anchor just barely keeping my mind still within the storm of centuries old torment. I'm not ready to go mad yet, like my mothers failed children. Hunted as beasts by self-styled 'vampire slayers' or sealed in tombs by their sane siblings. I had to seal more than one."

She interrupted her speech to look at Laura grimly.

"I see the same look in my eyes that they all bore in my own reflection, at least when I think of losing you."

Laura felt a mix of sadness and anger. On the one hand Carmilla's speech actually began to touch her, she truly felt empathy for her desperate girlfriend and most of all she remembered a time when these long broody speeches actually helped her to fall in love with the tragically romantic vampire. On the other hand she felt a disturbing shiver of revulsion as she only know realized the signs of how disturbed and emotionally dependent her lover was becoming. Know she could only see their history through the lens of what symptom of her lover's growing madness it was displaying at the time.

The smaller girl decided to hold her tongue still.

"I'll visit again soon. Don't worry, even if you never decide you're ready to speak I won't abandon you."

The vampire stood up and left.

* * *

Laura had to deal with another days wait.

Her plans of escape always led to the same grim conclusion: If Carmilla could not be talked into letting her go, then it would be impossible for both of them to walk away intact.

The problem was that she couldn't imagine, even now, hurting the vampire. She knew Carmilla still loved her a disturbed way, and that her madness wasn't entirely her fault. If it was just a crazy obsession, that would be one thing, but The Dean had done truly awful things to Carm, things that didn't make this right, but did provide all too clear a reason for her breakdown.

Laura knew she had to set aside her anger and at least make one last try at talking her girlfriend down. So she waited once again, waiting had become something of a habit now. Her computer provided at least one outlet to kill the boredom. She used it to look over past videos, ones from Silas that she still had saved offline, to find hints of how she might reach Carm.

It was an emotional experience, watching her own romance bloom. One that furthered her resolve, both to escape, and do so without anyone getting hurt.

Eventually the time came again. Carmilla entered the cabin silently, holding a bag of supplies. She laid it on the ground, and with a slight nod to Laura wordlessly began to leave.

"Wait Carm." The younger girl spoke up at last. "We need to talk."

The vampire stopped in place and faced her, her expression kept strictly neutral.

"Okay Creampuff. You seemed pretty certain that we had nothing to talk about though."

Laura let out a conciliatory sigh.

"I'm not going to say that I overreacted, you did kidnap me, but I might possibly have reacted better. We did just kill your psychotic mother, and a lot of terrible things have happened to you. So I understand why you reacted poorly. Can we please just try to go back to before? Make things right again?"

Carmilla sniffed as her face took on an expression both amused and sad.

"You were just so recently shouting to anybody who would listen that things were never right here. 'Normal' doesn't work at Silas, Laura. It never did. Nothing changed over night, and I am truly sorry, but if I let you out that door Mother will kill you."

Once again, Laura found herself becoming angry.

"You're just using your fear of the Dean coming back as an excuse for your fear of change. You are afraid of me leaving, that things might not work out as expected, that you might just screw up. If you just dump me in a closet you can always have a Laura around. No need for things like a real, healthy relationship! Just stow her away! You need to actually face your fears. Not of your mother, not of fish monsters, of people. Your fear of actually knowing people."

Carmilla's face was held in a chilling mask of emotionless calm.

"Are you done?" She slowly intoned the words, as if in great difficulty speaking steadily.

Laura found herself unable to respond.

"Good." Carm nodded. "Maybe you should ask Ell how I face my fears? I'm sorry." She mocked. "You can't. Mother killed her. There was Eliza… No? Mother killed her too? Well, if it isn't a pattern emerging. Every time I 'overcome my fears and find the woman I love', Mother kills them. Just maybe, you aren't as special as you think Hollis."

"I seem to be awful special for you to stuff me in here!" The small girl shouted. "Did you ever think to face her together? You yourself admitted that you never told your lovers about being a vampire. I know. I know about the Dean. She can't turn me on you. We just needed to try to escape together, or fight together."

"And the power of love would carry us through!" The vampire bitterly laughed. "What a perfect fairytale world you live in Hollis."

She stood up and opened the door.

"Unfortunately, that isn't the real world. This is going nowhere. I still truly wish it didn't have to be this way Laura. But just try to remember in some small way, that you are alive in here to hate me. Every other soul I've loved has lost that privilege."

She retreated once again into the night.

Laura cursed and punched the floor.

Now it was too late to pretend no one would get hurt.


	6. This is not the end for us

The next day was dismal for Laura.

She prepared her plan, ran over the motions, and practiced.

Eventually, with a tired sigh, she pulled open her laptop and started the camera.

"Hey, I just wanted to let whoever might see this know: I tried to do it right. I really, truly tried to use reason. If things don't work out, I just want to say I'm sorry."

She closed the laptop and waited, yet again.

Eventually, she heard the sounds of someone at the door. It was distinctly louder than the usual, near inaudible, approach of Carmilla. She just assumed, however, that the vampire had given up her stealthy approach considering it no longer served any purpose.

She swiftly took a position by the door, shoulder down, ready to charge.

The door creaked open.

"AAAHH!" Laura charged, flinging her tiny mass forward and instinctively screaming as she did so.

Almost instantaneously—and well before she had any idea what was happening—Laura felt something hard slam into her face and her body be forcibly flipped over onto the ground.

"Laura?!" A familiar voice pierced her new splitting headache.

"Danny?!" The small girl opened her eyes to see the redhead's Amazonian proportions towering over her.

Danny was holding a bow in one hand and was kitted out in some kind of leather hunting gear. Her face was partially covered in some kind of greenish makeup that seemed to be part camouflage , part ceremonial markings. She was in a battle ready position now with her elbow out, which looked to be what had struck Laura's face.

"What are you doing here Laura? You disappeared days ago. LaF and Perry had me scouring campus for you." She asked with obvious concern.

"I was kidnapped." The smaller girl rushed while standing up. "Which, come to think of it, should probably have been obvious by my abrupt disappearance and shackles."

"Same old Laura." Danny rolled her eyes and helped her to her feet. "Do you have any idea who did it?"

"That's the crazy part. It was actually-" She began to explain.

Her words were cut off however. The only warning was a choking sound, before Danny unceremoniously collapsed to the ground, revealing a grinning Carmilla standing behind her.

"Don't worry, I think she just figured it out."

Laura gasped in shock and horror as the grim vampire paced around her ex-friend's apparently unconscious body.

"I will admit doing that had to be the singular thing in this sorrowful affair that I have enjoyed." Carmilla remarked.

She then placed the heel of one of her feet, more precisely the leather boot she was wearing upon it, onto the small of Danny's back and began to visibly press down.

"Stop it!" Laura shouted.

She was still reeling from all of the shock this had brought. First a seeming rescue, and now a tragedy in the making.

"Why?" The vampire still wore a frustrating smile. "The blow I already gave that poor, enormous back of hers will likely cripple her for life. Don't you think she would much rather die than give up her precious Summer Society hunts?"

"It doesn't matter Carm, because that's not your choice to make." Laura gritted out. "I don't really care about the stupid rivalry between you two, or how you finish it, but nobody is going to be killed because I was foolish enough to let this happen to me."

The two glared at each other a moment. Laura could feel a palpable sadness in the vampire's eyes. She could feel what the typically inscrutable woman was feeling. She certainly knew her well enough even in this short time. The discovery had driven Carmilla even farther, now there was no way to hold things even to the tenuous madness she was balancing on before. The only route left was to let Danny go—ruining everything—or kill her—thus becoming a complete monster in Laura's eyes rather than merely dangerously disturbed for at the very least understandable reasons.

She was very much like a cornered animal.

"What are you going to do about it Creampuff?" The leather clad woman ground her foot deeper into Danny's back. Even considering her less than fond feelings for the tall girl, Laura felt a twinge of sympathy.

Laura had already chosen her course of action. It only became easier when the crumpled redhead blindly snatched one of her spilled arrows and stabbed the vampire in the foot stunning her. Taking the opening, Laura flung what little bulk she had headlong into the unready vampire sending her toppling back into the stake hidden behind the door.

The moment seemed to last forever. Laura watched the blood trickle down her lover, the woman who saved her life many times already.

She thought maybe she saw something like relief in the dead eyes as they finally closed.

Laura sobbed.

And fainted.


	7. But this is the end

It hadn't taken long before she woke up.

The first thing she did was scream for help again. Summers, out hunting for Danny had rescued her. They had the decency to hold back the congratulations over slaying a vampire, considering the entire campus knew about her and Carmilla.

Under any other conditions she might have been impressed at their tact.

They took Danny back.

She took Carm.

She had stopped at the first building, it was tiring carrying your girlfriend's body. The place was strange, opulently furnished, but with bizarre décor: Hunting trophies of not quite natural beasts, disturbing painting, obvious secret passages.

Time passed, she tended to the body, people came and went, probably told by the Summers. That left her here, talking to LaF and Perry again at last, after they were supposed to all escape together what felt like so long ago.

"You sure your okay?" LaF asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." The small girl mumbled.

"I really think you sh-" Perry started to offer.

"It's okay Per. I'm fine." She said, not rudely, but more firmly.

LaF looked at the body on the bed, before they could say anything Laura spoke up.

"How is doing Danny anyway?" That was nearly the furthest thing on her mind, but she was still trying to put off the inevitable questions.

"We don't know yet. The Summers are seeing that she gets the best care has to offer, but the break looked pretty bad. It could go either way." LaF replied.

Perry quickly moved in to ask the obvious, and necessary.

"So is she?' She gestured at the bed.

"Dead?" Laura managed a brief wry smile. "No more than ever. The stake only scratched her heart. Really considering it was a random tackle even managing that was pure chance. I think she's hurt, badly, but she'll recover."

Perry awkwardly shuffled for a moment. "I know it's not exactly our business but, well; what are you going to do?"

"Our relationship pretty much started with me kidnapping her, tying her to a chair for two weeks, and starving her to death Perry." She started.

"In our defence-" LaF tried to explain.

"No. It was never right. If we were both correct about one thing, it's that normal here was never okay. Carmilla was only ever taught that love is about hurting someone enough that they stick with you. First her family, then the Dean, and then me."

She let out a long, pained sigh and gazed at the unconscious form of her lover.

"Now I try again, and keep trying until we get this right."


End file.
